FSMA Fridays: Risk Assessment Best Practices And Implementing Preventive Controls (Part Two Of Four)

Check out Part One of this series

In the first portion of FSMA Fridays: Risk Assessment Best Practices And Implementing Preventive Controls, Levin and the Acheson Group panel discussed best practices for risk assessment and how to put in place preventive controls to comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act. Here, in the second installment, the panel discusses how food-producing companies can determine and address what their significant hazards are, as well as discussing the FDA’s expectations of risk mitigation and preventive controls.

Barbara: David, how can companies best determine what a significant hazard is? That’s different than just all hazards?

David: Right, exactly, and to build off what Anne has been saying around the last couple of questions of what a thorough risk assessment is about and the key elements, just a reminder is that the agency is expecting us to think down the traditional lines of microbiological, chemical, and physical hazards. To Anne’s point, you’re looking at that list and you’re looking at your foods and you’re determining, “Is this a potential hazard? Could this be a hazard?” Then you’ve got to take it to that next level and ask yourself the word “significant.”

Again, just as a reminder to everybody, the agency changed that language in the re-proposals from “reasonably likely to occur” language, which is the classic HACCP thinking, to the word “significant.”

Please log in or register below to read the full article.